


Fix

by tielan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Addiction, Angst, Community: sheppard_hc, Developing Relationship, Drama, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Kink, Romance, Violence, Whump, Withdrawal, Wraith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-18
Updated: 2011-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:53:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not everything that is broken can be fixed - sometimes it doesn't need to be. John begins to learns this when he returns from being a Wraith captive - but can he accept it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fix

**Author's Note:**

> For the Sheppard H/C Summer Exchange 2011. With thanks to tinychat, infinimato, and schneefink for petting, helping, and questioning!

_"If an addict who has been completely cured starts smoking again  
he no longer experiences the discomfort of his first addiction._

 _There exists, therefore, outside alkaloids and habit, a sense for opium,_   
_  
an intangible habit which lives on, despite the recasting of the organism.  
The dead drug leaves a ghost behind.  
At certain hours it haunts the house."  
~ Jean Cocteau ~_

 

Screams echoed in his head and he joined his voice to them, bleeding off the agony that shook and shivered his flesh.

Too much darkness, then too much light. Voices thundered in his head with conflicting orders while others poured out an endless stream of sharp secrets. Memories dredged through his mind - the too-bright sand stinging his eyes, hazy with the heat while overhead, a blue sky arched - untouchable, unreachable - and he writhed beneath it, burning. Then the glitter was sunlight off ice - sharp as glass as freezing tendrils wrapped themselves around his limbs.

He twisted against his restraints, leather abrading raw flesh. A knife sliced down, carving his wrist bones from his arm, and the detached hand scuttled across the cold stone floor of the bunker towards his ancient and decrepit body. A mouth gaped in the palm and it crawled up his body and fastened to his chest, draining him dry.

There were eyes above him, cat-slit and green. There were hands on his flesh, biting into his chest as he writhed. There was a voice speaking in sibilant accents, with compelling hypnotic tones.

There was darkness and a dim recollection of something pounding in his ears, in his mind. Faces pale and hollow above him, haunted madness in their eyes.

He fought when they came to take him away, but his limbs were weak and wouldn’t obey him. Voices urged him on when he stumbled, in his ears and in his head, and he obeyed them.

There was open sky and too-bright sun, and then closed spaces and too much light. They loomed around him, big and dangerous, and he quivered in the corner and fought when they tried to coax him out.

He wounded one of them.

They knocked him out.

When he woke, he was strapped down again - under a too-bright light in a room whose ceiling vanished high above...

Or was it a low closed-in cavern? He closed his eyes and breathed shallowly, trying to parse his thoughts in the darkness behind his eyes. Still, the downlights that burned into his mind and he couldn’t think straight in their brightness. He focused on the thunder of his heartbeat in his ears, the tingle of his senses.

He opened his eyes on darkness. The lights had turned off while he had his eyes closed.

Lights flared, bright coronas of pain that lanced into his eyes. He blinked through the tears as the door hissed open. Shadows strode in, blurred forms that circled outside the light, and their cold hands pinned him like knives, biting into his flesh as they loosened his straps, but muted his struggles.

The female approached, hands outstretched.

“Colonel?”

He snarled at her, twisting from his captors’ grasps, lashing out with his legs as he yanked his arms away. His hand closed around the butt of a weapon - big, and heavy in his palm. He shot the owner and watched him fall as though in slow motion, dark tendrils swirling around his head. The female was next.

She took a step forward, her hands outstretched towards him, her voice imploring. One, two, three males, the last talking to thin air - or into a small black wire. Reporting to his masters.

The wire fit neatly over his ear and he turned to the door as it hissed open - then halted. The male outside was already on his way in and the half-open door blocked him. He fell to a scarlet shot, and his companion was a split-second behind.

As John approached, the door slid fully open, as though aware of his presence. He stepped through it and let it close behind him, sealing the fallen inside. Shouts echoed down the end of the corridor and as he turned to look, fighters clattered down stairs.

Doors slid shut, blocking them off, and he turned and went in the opposite direction, his blood humming, his mind able to focus on one thing.

Escape.

Confusion gripped him as he stopped by a window and looked out at the darkening sky.

It was dusk, the shadows falling close across the sky and sea he glimpsed through the towers... A city?

 _Atlantis._ His mind produced the word, but it was just syllables, meaningless. Then he had a vision of luminous towers, and pain scintillated through his skull. He grunted with the agony of it, but forced himself back to the vision, forced himself to think, to breathe. He knew this place. He felt its familiarity like a punch to the gut.

Had he been a prisoner here? Had they captured him before? How had he escaped last time? Or had it been a rescue?

Did it matter? They were after him now and he needed to move! An urgent itch was growing in the pit of his belly, and he turned, his breath catching as he heard his pursuers coming for him, feet pounding on metal stairs as they sought another way to reach him after he’d closed off those options.

Which way? _Up._

His legs chose to take six flights before he stayed on one level. His breath rasped in his chest, sounding hoarse in his ears as he moved out into the corridor, following his body’s instinct. His body knew the way around here, even if his mind couldn’t seem to function properly.

He had to get out of here. Had to escape.

How was he going to get out?

 _You’re not_.

A little voice in his head piped up, but it didn’t sound triumphant, only concerned.

Right along this wall through the atrium, keeping to the shadows. He could hear the pursuit moving through the complex - voices and footfalls echoing down long corridors.

 _You can trust them. You don’t have to run._

His belly was beginning to burn, like someone was holding a hot iron to it. He paused, one shoulder pressed to the wall as his head spun like he’d had too much to drink.

 _They’re only concerned for your well-being._

In the back of his head, the little voice piped, insistent that this was the wrong thing to do. Only it was the right thing to do. These people had captured him, had held him prisoner, and now he’d escaped and he had to get away...

To where? Where was he going? Where was he headed?

He sucked in a harsh breath, tore at the neck of his t-shirt. The fabric was damp on his chest and he ripped it off and tossed it aside as he forced himself to keep going down the corridor. Keep moving. Keep out of their clutches. Escape.

 _You don’t even know where you are._

A headache threatened. He pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead, trying to quell the pain. His fingers came away wet, and as he stared at the sweat gleaming on his palm, his hand shook.

 _Hot. It’s hot in here._

Above him, the air started to move, as though it had sensed his need. Within moments a cool breeze stirred through the corridor, and its caress was like a balm against his skin.

He sucked in the air and stumbled on. His pursuers were catching up. He could feel it in his bones, their closeness like a goad in his flesh as he moved blindly through the corridors. Doors opened before him and closed after he’d passed through. Twice, he took a wrong turn and had to trace his steps back the way he’d came.

And the burning ache in his gut spread to his lungs, invaded his legs, squeezed his balls. It pulsed through him like a heartbeat.

But they were coming for him.

He stumbled around a corner - close, so close - and heard the shout down the other end of the corridor as the pursuit saw him. No doors between him and them, just his destination, and he lifted his arm and fired. One got shot and several scattered, but there were others who ducked and dodged and wove, coming for him. He swung into the chamber and jabbed his finger at the map and the doors hissed closed to their cries of dismay.

When the doors opened, the corridor outside was empty and he staggered down a long corridor, then climbed a flight of stairs.

His feet felt so heavy, and his vision was blurring. The throbbing burn in his body had spread to his hands, and the pain was growing unbearable, but he shoved himself on. If he could only get to the top of the stairs, if he could only reach the ships that waited there, if he could only push himself a little bit more...

It was dark at the top of the stairs, before his eyes adjusted. Blocky shapes began to emerge from the shadows - ships, roughly oblong, waiting to be flown.

He started towards the nearest one.

And a woman stepped out of the shadows.

Not the woman of before - smaller, trim and authoritative, where the other had been tentative and uncertain.

“John.”

He stopped, although she didn’t move towards him, didn’t approach. She stood her ground and he stood his.

“You can’t hold me.”

“We do not want to hold you,” she said. “We want you to stay.”

Someone was panting and he realised it was him. “I can’t.” He swallowed, and his mouth was dry and bitter. “I have to-- You can’t keep me here.”

“We do not need to keep you here.” Her voice was calm, almost soothing, yet there was a note in it that held an edge. “You want to be here.”

“You can’t make me stay! I have to go!” The throbbing in his veins was growing unbearable, like someone had replaced his blood with molten metal. He took a step forward, threatening. “Get out of my way!”

She didn’t move. “You must go through me to leave, John. That is the only way you will get a ‘jumper to leave the city.”

“If I have to, then I will.”

It was wrong. Something in him knew this was all wrong. But pain gnawed at him, driving him forward, driving him towards the only place he knew he’d find relief.

At the feet of a Queen.

He took a step forward and so did she.

The lights came up, showing a hangar bay and the woman who stood in front of him.

When he met her gaze, the world lurched and spun. He found himself on his knees, and the floor beneath him was icy against his skin - against his palms, against his arm, his shoulder, his back.

She crouched beside him and her eyes never left his as her hand touched his shoulder with a caress that was both gentle and edged - like a cold knife brushing against hot skin. He shivered - not entirely because of the cold or the ache in his belly.

“You want to be here, John.”

And as the shaking took him, the thing which had been John Sheppard knew she spoke the truth.

He wanted to be here.

 

-oOo-

 

When Teyla reached the medical observation chamber, Ronon and Rodney were already there in the viewing room.

Down below, in the chamber itself, John twisted and writhed in his restraints, grunts coming from beneath his clenched teeth.

“How is he?”

“Do we look like doctors?”

By which Teyla took that things were bad.

“He’s worse,” Ronon said, terse and pithy.

Teyla glanced down at the man who sweated beneath the harsh downlights, a familiar face set in unfamiliar pain. John had always carried his hurts inside and she had not realised how much she relied on that anchoring stoicism. He could be cruel in his own way, distancing himself from those who would care about him, but she had long since come to understand that it was how he protected his heart - whether to drive others away, or to keep them close, but at arm’s length.

“His readings?”

Rodney made a gesture towards the bank of computers monitoring the pads that dotted John’s skin below. Teyla went over and looked through the data. Much of it was still new to her, unfamiliar although not unknown, but she could see that his heart rate had been elevated for too long during this last withdrawal cycle, and that the last blood test had not shown any improvements.

“It shouldn’t be taking this long,” Rodney said, fierce and terse. “They had Ronon’s friend Tyre for longer, and it only took a few days to get the enzyme out of him.”

Teyla came to the window to look down at John as he thrashed against the sheets, the restraints stark against the pallor of his skin. It had been nearly a week since they had found him; three days since he had escaped from confinement while Jennifer tried to take his blood - and still the throes of enzyme deprivation shook him.

“A harder withdrawal,” she murmured. “For a different suborning.”

In the corner of her eye, she saw Ronon turn. “What do you mean?”

Rodney was staring at her. “One brainwashing’s the same as the next, isn’t it?”

“No,” Teyla said. “One mind is different to another. The way you think is not how I think or how Ronon thinks, and John’s mindset is different still.” It seemed obvious to Teyla. “If I wished to convince Ronon that he is loyal to the Wraith, I would take a different path to that which I would take were I convincing you.”

“You’d fail.”

She smiled at Ronon’s certainty - and did not remind him that the Wraith had succeeded. “Physical torture would merely be the start of such a process - the...mental channels of the mind must also be remoulded in order to truly gain a foothold in the subject’s mind.”

“And you know about Wraith brainwashing techniques how?” Rodney demanded, his eyes huge. “Do I even want to know...?”

Teyla shrugged. It seemed obvious enough to her. Different minds, different methods - surely that was obvious.

Ronon at least seemed to understand. “His deprogramming would be different because he’s from Earth.”

“I am saying it is more complicated than simply clearing his system of the enzyme.” Teyla said after a moment. “His body will recover more easily than his mind.”

“Yeah, well, it’s still taking too long for his body to recover!”

“But he’ll get better.”

That was Ronon, voicing the fear that held them all. Friend and companion, ally and brother, John was many things to them, not least of which was that he was theirs.

“Yes.” Teyla looked down at the man whose features contorted as he writhed against his bindings. “He must.”

Down in the room, John shuddered and lay still, no longer in the throes of withdrawal, merely panting in the sheets. Another session endured.

Teyla let out a breath and heard Rodney and Ronon’s sighs.

They stayed as long as they could before their responsibilities took them away. Ronon had training with the marines in the midafternoon, and Rodney was called away to some crisis in the labs.

With Torren back on New Athos with Kanaan, Teyla had a little more time to spare. She was due for a conversation with Mr. Woolsey regarding Atlantis’ return to the Pegasus galaxy but that was not until just before dinner.

And so she stayed.

It did not matter so much that John could not know she was there; that his pain-wracked mind would neither be aware of her presence or care. It mattered to Teyla that he was not left alone - that, she and Rodney and Ronon could say that they had been there for him, as he had been there for them in times past.

It seemed forever before the worst of the withdrawal throes subsided, leaving him shivering in the sweat-soaked sheets.

Teyla let out a breath she did not know she’d been holding.

Over in the corner, the medical aide echoed her sigh. Alyse stood from the computer station and stretched. “Thank God that’s done. Only now it’s time to change his sheets while he’s still exhausted from the withdrawal. Do you mind helping?”

“Not at all.” Teyla turned from the window to assist the aide.

The lights in the room brightened, while behind Teyla, down in the chamber, the lights went out.

“That’s not good.”

Teyla looked down into the inky darkness as Alyse began checking the room status board. She shaded her brow against the glass, straining her eyes to see something for all that common sense told her that the shadows would reveal nothing.

“Corporal, the lights have gone out, can we get a check inside the room?”

“Wait.” A light had come on in the room below.

It was just one light, and barely at half-strength, but it was enough for her to see the man who stared up at the windows of the observation room. His eyes were black hollows in his face, near as black as the dank and sweat-soaked hair that clung to his forehead, but Teyla thought they seemed lucid enough.

And he could see her.

With the lights in the room low and the lights in the observation room bright, he would be able to see her outline clearly.

His mouth moved, cracked lips forming about a word.

It took Teyla a few moments to realise the word was her name.

 

-oOo-

 

They were watching him. He could feel it.

Even when the itching grew too strong, and the ache of hunger stabbed rusty knives in his gut and his legs and his arms and his back, he could feel the eyes upon him, watching him, pitying him.

Who were they? Who was he? How long had he been here? Where was here? What did they want from him? Why was he tied down and what had they done to him?

He had no answers. His thoughts scrabbled, sifting through fragmented memories, trying to find something whole enough to make sense. Sometimes he almost had it - and then the hunger crawled through him again, smashing through his concentration, eating him from the inside out, and forcing him to concentrate on managing the pain.

Once it was over, though, he could think again. He could focus. Almost.

She was there.

He couldn’t see her - couldn’t see anything from beneath the lights that burned into his soul, but he knew she was there, her shoulders proud beneath the long neck and lifted chin, her body lithe as a dancer and strong as a warrior.

Was there pity in her eyes? Distaste when she looked at the wreck of need and shuddering flesh he’d become? He couldn’t see and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Until the convulsions were done and he could at least relax against sodden sheets, even if it was disgusting, even if the itching never entirely left him. It was bearable - he could manage it. He _would_ manage it.

But he wanted to see her.

She’d fed him from her own hand. She’d played with him until he screamed, and the smile that had teased her lips had become his anchor...

No. Not her. It hadn’t been _her_ who’d done that to him. That was...someone else. Something else.

Perhaps?

He needed to see her - needed to know. Was this just another stage of his breaking? Because he was already broken - a cowed and coward man that they’d abandoned like so much space junk, floating...

No. That was wrong, too.

There were too many wrong things in his mind, too many broken pieces. They could fix him, but he’d never be whole again. He’d never be as good as he had been, one broken cog in a piece of machinery that never stopped grinding, that didn’t remake - only replaced.

He wanted to see her.

If the lights down here went out and the lights in the room brightened...

She turned to the window, peering down, one hand lifted as though the better to see him. Her expression was anxious, worried - about him, and he felt that anxiety as though she’d brushed her fingers through his hair in a reassuring caress.

A single light came on above him. So she could see him. So she didn’t have to be worried.

So he could meet her gaze and have her know him.

 _Teyla._

For a moment there was nothing but her gaze upon him. Nothing but him laid out before her, a humiliating wreck of a man. Then she turned and moved from the window.

She’d walked away.

He sagged down onto the sheets, panting like he’d taken a body blow. His body ached all over, his flesh hot as fire; only his gut was cold.

She’d walked away.

The lights went back to normal and the door hissed open to allow the males in. The marines. He barely noticed them come in, trying to breathe through the bitter taste of disappointment that lingered in his mouth.

She’d walked away.

More footsteps - these ones lighter and softer. A woman. Two.

He turned his head and she stepped out from the shadow of the other woman - as though he’d summoned her, ridiculous as the thought was. She walked through the room as though she owned it, with no protest from his keepers, and came to stand by his bed as though it was her right.

“What do you need me to do?”

She wasn’t addressing him, although her eyes met his. He didn’t hear the other answer, caught in the sudden surge of memories: standing up from a table in a communal tent, looking up at him as he slid a necklace around her throat, running through the woods... Handling a weapon, whirling staves through the air, learning to read... Her face by firelight, by electric light, by hive light...

The touch on his wrist - cool and brisk - surprised him, made him jerk back. At the doors, the guards lifted their weapons but were immediately waved down.

“John? Do you recognise me?”

Of course he recognised her... Sort of.

“Teyla?”

“Yes,” she said. “Teyla. We are going to change your sheets - but to do that, we must untie you.”

“Straps.” There was something wrong with him. His tongue felt thick in his head, and he couldn’t seem to organise his thoughts.

“Yes. The last time we undid them, you tried to escape.”

“You stopped me.” Light and dark, cold and hot, running and shooting, and her hand cold on his chest, sucking the life out of--

No. That wasn’t her. _That wasn’t her._

“John?” Fingers closed about his forearm and he almost jerked back. He looked up into her eyes. “If I tell you that you are safe, will you trust me?”

It took him a moment to answer. But her touch didn’t hurt - oddly, it felt good against his skin - dry and calming, calling him back from the memory of racking pain.

“Yes.”

She eased him off the bed, her shoulder firm beneath his. Reassuring. Reliable.

He didn’t remember if they’d done this other times - taking him out of the restraints and changing the sheets. He supposed they must have, because it felt like everyone was watching him when they eased him off the bed. Teyla’s shoulder was firm under his, and he tried not to lean on her too much. Too dangerous.

By the time they got him back on the bed, his legs were shaking. Everything was shaking and all he wanted was to curl up on the clean sheets.

“We have to get him back into the straps,” said someone. “When he’s in the middle of withdrawal...”

“No.” He forced it out through cracked lips. “No straps.”

“John, we cannot leave you like... It is not safe.”

Not safe. But nowhere was safe anymore, not even in the city...

The city.

Silver towers rose in his mind, seawater spilling down over mirrored glass. _Atlantis fair, listen where thou art sitting, under the glassy cool translucent wave..._

 _Atlantis._

“John?”

He looked up into her faint frown. “Still here.”

“We must put you back in the straps for a while.”

Back in the straps. Trapped. Held back. Forced.

Fingers smoothed across his wrist.

He made himself take a deep breath. They had to put him back in for a while - not forever, just a while. _Will you trust me?_

“Okay.”

It helped to breathe deeply as they strapped him down - not much, but enough for a while. And the itchiness was getting worse. He had a vague memory of clawing at his skin, drawing blood...and yeah, when he looked down, there were the scratches, still healing.

 _It’s for your own good, John!_

Someone else’s voice. Someone from long ago. Someone he didn’t remember.

Why didn’t he remember?

He tried to catch at her hand, strained against the leather bindings at his wrist. She solved the problem by taking his hand in hers. “John?”

“What happened to me?”

She hesitated, but only a moment. “You were captured by the Wraith and have been addicted to the Wraith enzyme. Do you remember?”

He almost did. Except that he was pretty sure he didn’t want to. “How long?”

“Nearly two months.”

Two months. Long enough to well and truly mess him up. And yeah, he really didn’t want to remember what they’d done to him. Maybe...maybe remembering wasn’t so good....

The itchiness was getting worse again, as though an army of ants were inside his skin and needed to get out. Oh, Jesus.

“John?”

He clenched his jaw. “It hurts.”

“I will stay with you.”

“Thanks.” One deep breath. Two. Three. Then the ants called in their cousins and started biting him. All over. He began to pull against the restraints, needing to move, needing to scratch or rub or _something_.

“John?”

“Talk to me. About anything.” If he focused on her voice, maybe he could get through this.

He focused on her voice as long as he could.

It wasn’t very long.

 

-oOo-

 

“Physically, he’s recovering well. It’s slower than Ronon or Tyre did, but I don’t think we’ll have to worry about him relapsing. His hormone levels are returning to normal, brain chemistry looks as we’d expect from someone recovering from chemical addiction.”

Jennifer folded her hands in her lap. Teyla thought she looked worn down after the last few days - between her work on John’s state of body, and her regular duties in the infirmary, it had been  a difficult ten days. Carson had come back to the city to help manage some of Jennifer’s workload, but John’s case was very tiring.

“I’ll need to run a few MRI scans over the next week, just to check that everything’s functioning properly, but otherwise he’s pretty much clean.”

Across the table from Teyla, Mr. Woolsey nodded, looking relieved to have the official report from the doctor.

The meeting was not large - Teyla, Ronon, Rodney, Mr. Woolsey, Jennifer, Major Lorne, and the Atlantis psychologist, Dr. Eva Robinson.

“So what happens now?” Ronon asked.

“He gets to look forward to a lifetime of shrink sessions,” said Rodney.

“I thought you liked them.”

“I do. Well, I like the talking. Sheppard doesn’t.”

Mr. Woolsey cleared his throat. “It is standard procedure for all personnel to pass the psych evaluation for working on the Stargate project.”

“And how long is that gonna take?”

“It’ll take as long as it takes,” said Dr. Robinson. She didn’t seem unsympathetic, merely tired. “I’m supposed to advise if he’s unfit for duty and Mr. Woolsey is to act as he sees fit. But by the standards of either USAF or IOA, Colonel Sheppard has been a prisoner and suffered torture while a POW. He needs to be evaluated before he can be declared fit to return to duty.”

“And if he’s not fit?” Ronon demanded, eyes narrowed.

No-one answered for a moment.

“How about we worry about that when it happens,” said Mr. Woolsey in to the silence. “In the meantime, we’ll wait on Dr. Robinson’s report regarding the Colonel’s mental state.”

“Oh, like we’re any of us a ten out of ten on the sanity scale around here,” Rodney muttered.

Teyla thought of a line from a book she was thinking of reading to Torren. “ _We’re all mad here_ ,” she murmured and was rewarded with Dr. Robinson’s appreciative laugh. It broke the tension a little, at least.

“So when’s Sheppard okay to be released from the observation room?”

“Well, that depends mostly on who’s going to keep an eye on him.” Jennifer said, looking from Ronon to Mr Woolsey and back to Ronon. “Usually, I’d recommend him being put under observation here in the infirmary for a few days. The last three weeks have been hell on his system and he’s still exhausted, even if he’s clean. But he won’t want to be in the infirmary - or anything that’s official surveillance.”

“You wish us to keep an eye on him.”

“He needs to rest, and while it’s unlikely that he’ll relapse, I’d feel more confident knowing there was someone with him at all times.”

“We can do it,” Ronon said.

“Speak for yourself!”

“Then Teyla and I can do it.” Broad shoulders shrugged, and Rodney went scarlet.

“I wasn’t saying I couldn’t!”

“You just said--”

“I _meant_ that you should’ve asked us first! I mean, Teyla’s got Torren - well, obviously not right this instant, but when she does she’ll have to keep an eye on him first - and I’ve got work to do!”

Ronon looked at Rodney for a long moment, then turned to Jennifer. “I can keep an eye on Sheppard.”

“And I can do so as well,” Teyla said, stepping in before Rodney could interrupt yet again. “Whether Torren is in the city or not.”

“Then once he’s released, there’s no reason he can’t go back to his rooms. There’ll have to be someone with him at all times, and obviously, he’ll have to come in for the daily check-ups.” Jennifer glanced at Dr. Robinson. “I’ll mention the psych eval, although it’ll almost certainly come up when he’s talking about getting back on duty with Mr. Woolsey.”

“I’ll leave it a few days and then contact him,” the psychologist assured her. “If he hasn’t contacted me first.”

“So if there’s nothing else...?” Mr. Woolsey said. “Perhaps we should give Colonel Sheppard the good news?”

As the meeting broke up, Teyla thought it unlikely that John would contact the psychologist, but she could not deny that it was the best way to handle him - at least for the moment. In the meantime, she would work out a timetable with Ronon and Rodney for checking on John, and perhaps speak with Major Lorne to assist in John’s re-assimilation into the life of the city. Assuming he was feeling up to it.

From the smile that touched his expression as Jennifer, Woolsey, and Rodney went into the room, Teyla imagined he was feeling up to just about anything right now.

“Will it be a black mark? On his record?”

Teyla turned at Ronon’s question, a little surprised - both at the question and that he was asking her. “I do not believe it will. He was under duress when they forced him into addiction. Why do you ask?”

“It’s not the same when you come back.” The gravelled voice was rough.

“You speak of your own experience?”

“Afterwards...it was difficult. Different.” He looked at her with serious eyes. “Matters less here than it would’ve in Sateda.”

“But John is from Atlantis.”

“Yeah.” Ronon braced his hands against the railing. “And you know what the Earth military’s like.”

Down in the room, John was listening to whatever it was Jennifer was telling him with his head cocked. He said something, and Rodney and Mr. Woolsey both answered, although John turned to look at Rodney. He shrugged, his hands tucked firmly into his fatigue pockets, his shoulders subtly tense.

They had both come up against expectations and mindsets that they found irrational and unreasonable in their time with the Atlantis expedition. That only the perfectly healed were suitable for work, that And, as those in Pegasus must, they had learned to deal with it, or around it.

Teyla thought of the many men and women from the expedition she’d seen sent back to Earth through the Stargate because of injury. Few of those injured and sent back in such a way had ever returned to the city - and none of the military men. Oh, the scientists might come back, but those who fought were replaced with the healthy and able-bodied - a seemingly infinite resource of bodies, even if that wasn’t the case.

“Atlantis will not forsake John,” she said and trusted it was true.

Rodney was saying something to John, and his face tilted up to the windows, looking to where Teyla and Ronon stood. An almost-smile touched his lips, the briefest of salutes, before John slung an arm around Rodney’s shoulders and ushered him out the door.

 

-oOo-

 

It helped that the psych evaluation wasn’t as bad as John had feared. Uncomfortable, but pretty much what he’d expected.

Dr. Robinson was good at what she did, or so Rodney claimed - although John didn’t think that was a particularly reassuring endorsement. So far as he could see, Rodney went to the city psychologist so there’d be at least one person who’d listen to him ramble and rant about his life and the intricate workings of his complicated psyche without interrupting or walking away.

On the other hand, Teyla had noted that the psychologist had an open mind and that he should sit through at least one session himself before making a judgement.

He sat through one session.

Dr. Robinson didn’t push him - although they talked about the mission John had been on when captured, Todd and the current state of the ‘alliance’ with the Wraith, and several other times John had been captured and imprisoned. He answered all her questions with as little detail as he dared and as much openness as he could bear, and got the feeling that Dr. Robinson was good people, even if she was a shrink.

And f the whole process didn’t exactly make him comfortable, at least he didn’t feel like he was being picked apart for Dr. Robinson to study, neatly categorise, and file away under ‘T’ for ‘totally screwed up.’

John didn’t need a psych evaluation to tell him he was messed up.

And at the end of the evaluation, Dr. Robinson smiled and said, “I know you’re not likely to darken my door again, Colonel, but if you want someone to listen, I’m happy to be the ear.”

“Uh, thanks, Doc. But no.”

John went through the physical training again - working his way back to physical health. His body ached more than it had, but that was mostly age, creeping up on him. According to Keller, he’d been pushing himself too hard even before the Wraith captured him. Then the Wraith draining and feeding process had messed up his cellular structure, and this was the result.

He went to New Athos through the gate and came back. He flew a ‘jumper and came back. He flew a ‘jumper through the gate to assist in the evacuation of an Ancient library endangered by a glacier and came back.

And then he got rostered back on with his team.

They went, they made nice with the locals, they settled a dispute about land, technology, and trade goods, and they came home with a crate of apples - or the nearest Pegasus equivalent.

Rodney complained about having to help wheel the apples back. Ronon effectively told him not to be a sissy. Teyla offered to make them sit in separate corners.

John grinned most of the walk back to the gate.

The apples were tasty, and good in pie.

And after that it got easier.

Mostly.

There were the dreams, of course.

They didn’t start until after what Rodney insisted on calling ‘the Curious Incident Of The Wraith In The Village’, which was a few weeks after John started going through the gate regularly again, and nearly two months after they’d gotten him back from the Wraith.

Teyla’s last memory of the place was several years old, but Athosians had been there within the last few months and traded for spices and herbs that they had later passed onto the Atlantis chefs.

Spices weren’t usually high-demand in Atlantis - they brought most of their supplies from Earth - but apparently the Quartermaster’s Department Of Atlantis - affectionately known as ‘The Atlantis Scroungers Division’ - were going through a Masterchef craze, and in exchange for making up some specialised equipment the kitchen had been wanting for nearly a year, they wanted more of the Cindor spices.

It was a milk run. John saw that in Woolsey’s face when they were given the assignment and made a mental note to speak with the man about not assigning him the easy ones. Then again, it might have been that his team would’ve been assigned it anyway since Teyla was the contact between the Cindor and Atlantis.

They didn’t expect to be greeted until they were at least halfway to the village. And it was a nice day on the planet - midafternoon, warm sun, probably the tail end of summer if the cicadas and the colours of the leaves were any indication.

John was watching the village down in the valley, looking for the meet-and-greet party. Most traders preferred to make the first greeting outside the village, unless they saw the traders were familiar or decided that they were harmless.

“What’s wrong?”

He turned. Teyla had stopped in her tracks, and her eyes had that blankness she got when  the Wraith were near.

 _Shit._

“Culling?”

“No, it is...” She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. “A Wraith...close.” Sunlight gleamed off her hair as she turned, looking briefly at the town before frowning and turning back to the others.

“What is it?” Rodney asked.

John frowned. “Just one?”

“Would explain why we haven’t been greeted yet,” Ronon said, loosening his weapon.

John brought his weapon up so it would be more easily pointed. “Has he sensed you?”

“I do not believe he has.” Teyla frowned a little, her hands still resting on the butt of her weapon. “And... It is... His mind does not feel right.”

“Define how a Wraith’s mind ‘feels right,’” Rodney said. “Because if there’s anything weird or strange about this situation then now would probably be a good time to note it down!”

Teyla’s eyelids drooped over her eyes, but she shook her head. “I cannot tell what it is. Only that he does not feel...right.”

“But it’s definitely a Wraith?” John grimaced. “All right. We’ll proceed, but with caution. Teyla, if you sense or see anything out of the ordinary, you say immediately, okay?”

They moved forward, alert and wary. John took point with Teyla beside and behind him, and Ronon followed behind her. Rodney stayed in the back, configuring a LSD to locate any Wraith bio-signatures in the area.

John shoved any of his uncertainties deep into a mental storage cupboard and concentrated on keeping an eye out for the Wraith. He didn’t need to self-talk himself into holding it together, and his team hadn’t given it a moment’s question. Whatever the Air Force, Woolsey, the shrinks or the rest of the universe thought, his team trusted him.

As they approached the village, John finally saw signs of the greeting party - two men and three women all dressed in the local garb, a couple of younger children dancing along, and a teenager trying not to look like he was hovering to see if anything interesting was going to happen.

“Everything looks normal,” John muttered in an aside to the rest of his team. “Teyla, can you...?”

Teyla made a soft hissing noise, and one of the men clutched his head with hands that were suddenly too large and too pale for humanity.

John had his weapon up and out even as the villagers turned at their companion’s gasp. He aimed, gritted his teeth and fired.

A dark hole appeared at its temple between its clutched fingers and it collapsed on the ground.

The villagers’ shrieks filled the air as they realised what had been standing among them, and the team hurried down to do damage control.

The body was strange - mostly human, but for the hands that were visibly Wraith.

“Like a hybrid,” Rodney muttered. “What’s he doing here?”

“He came through the Gate a month ago,” said the headman of the village, shaking as he looked at the corpse of the thing that had lived among the Cindor. “He was injured and said he needed food and shelter. He wasn’t... He didn’t look like...that. Not when we looked at him.”

“You never noticed anyone going missing?” Ronon asked. “Suddenly getting old? Falling sick?”

The headman’s wife wrapped her arm firmly about her husband’s shoulders. “There are several who hunt out in the forest, bringing in meat and herbs. We were expecting one a couple of weeks ago but he never showed. Sometimes that happens, though - they lose track of time.”

Whatever Jedi mind trick the Wraith had played on the village, it had failed with his death. Everyone saw him for what he now was.

John found Teyla frowning over the Wraith.

His stomach roiled a little as he stood over it. The gaze of the empty eyes seemed to rest on him, and he shivered, although it was a warm day.

“John?” Teyla was watching him, one brow slanting skywards.

“It’s nothing,” he said.

He’d shot the Wraith without thinking, without hesitation, without question.

He went to bed feeling one tiny bit more free.

And that night, the dreams began.

 

-oOo-

 

Teyla let her son walk through the city halls, guiding him mostly by the sound of her voice. On this day - the restday for many of the scientists - the city was not so busy that she could not advise Torren of trouble before he walked into it.

Of course, being barely two, Torren was not always amenable to listening.

“No, Torren, not that way,” she said as he took a left turn rather than a right.

He paused, his eyes innocently wide as he pointed with one chubby hand. “Sea, mama!”

“You can see the sea from the window of the gym,” she told him. Allowing them to be distracted at this stage would make her even more late than she had intended. As it was, she had been delayed on New Athos. “Do you not wish to see Ronon again?”

Torren’s face lit up. “Ronon!” He scrambled down the corridor, his little legs almost tripping over themselves on his haste.

She had hoped to speak with Ronon before she left for New Athos, but he had been busy settling something among a group of marines who had fallen out with each other. John had mentioned something of it at breakfast the other morning, shadows under his eyes as he explained that Ronon had asked if John would mind if he dealt with it instead.

 _You do not mind?_

His mouth quirked, that ghost of a smile that yet changed his whole expression. _What I don’t know, I don’t have to reprimand._

It was about John that Teyla wished to speak with Ronon.

She had spoken with Rodney two days before she left to retrieve Torren from New Athos, and while his insights had been helpful, Teyla was not convinced that his assessment was entirely correct - that John was just getting back into being in Atlantis again and that he’d be back to normal before long.

Perhaps it was just her own experience, but Teyla did not find one got back to ‘normal’ - whatever that meant - after being held a prisoner for several months.

It was not that John was not capable of his duties. Professionally, she had little doubt that John was up to the mark for the standards of Atlantis.

But personally? Privately, behind his eyes and his easy smile and the casual camaraderie he afforded everyone around him?

Teyla did not think John would be ‘normal’ anytime soon - or, at least, not exactly as he was.

In her mind, Kanaan’s face rose, the expression careful as he greeted her on New Athos this morning. _Are you well, Teyla?_

 _I am very well, Kanaan. And you?_

 _As it goes. Torren is nearly ready to go - I will send someone to fetch him. He grows so fast. It seems only yesterday..._

And he had trailed off, unwilling memory intruding upon them both.

After Michael’s imprisonment, Teyla had not been able to accept Kanaan back in her bed, her dreams full of horrors her waking mind knew to be untrue and yet which she was helpless to fight. Her son was a blessing, and a part of her would always feel that kinship with his father. But what Michael had done to them both had left scars that not even the most dedicated love could conquer.

But Teyla had not known what lay within her until that first night Kanaan returned with her to her rooms.

She did not doubt that similar horrors lay within John. And while she could not fight his nightmares - if it were possible, she doubted he would even permit her to do so - she could perhaps help make things easier on him.

Ahead of her, a steady banging on the door indicated Torren had reached the gym and was frustrated by the doors’ reluctance to open.

“Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama!” Each repetition was emphasised by a thump of a little fist against the door.

“Torren!” Her protest silenced him, but he scowled as though the locked doors were her fault.

Through the doors, she could hear the sounds of sparring - the squeak of shoes on the floor, the ring of treated wood against treated wood, the low-voiced taunts and grunts as they moved back and forth across the floor.

Torren wailed when Teyla scooped him up in one arm, but she was not about to allow her son to run in on someone’s sparring session. She swiped the opening panel and the doors slid back to show Ronon fighting John.

“John!” Torren pronounced, and beyond Ronon, John grinned.

“Hey, little buddy. Gimme just a minute to kick Ronon’s ass...”

“Not gonna happen,” retorted Ronon.

In Teyla’s arms, Torren twisted around, trying to get down, and she swiftly carried him over to the window. “Look, Torren!” She pointed out at the distant glittering waves visible through the glass. “See the sea!”

Torren gave her a look that said quite plainly he was not about to fall for any such trick, but he did squint out for a few seconds, before a grunt from John turned him back to the fight on the floor. Ronon had managed to poke John in the belly, and was sidling in a wide circle around the hunched-over man.

“Giving up?”

John straightened, taking a deep breath and going back in again. “Yeah, you wish!”

“Ronon!” Torren tried to scramble down the tiers that led to the floor. “Mamaaaaaa,” he wailed as Teyla caught his arm and pulled him back.

“We do not interrupt when someone sparring, Torren. It is dangerous and if you run into the middle of it, you will get hurt.”

Torren sulked, but he sat on her knee and stuck his fingers in his mouth while John and Ronon circled around and watched for weaknesses, striving to best utilise their strengths.

It was not an even match; even Teyla knew that. John did not practise enough, nor keep himself in shape the way Ronon did. Watching them taunt and retort, test and feint, though, Teyla frowned. John was not fighting as he usually did. His usual fighting style was on the offensive and he was prone to follow feints, going in for a faked weakness, before discovering he had been deceived.

Now, he waited, drawing Ronon out, leading him on. Ronon feinted twice to the left, and John followed neither of them, instead forcing Ronon back to the right by appearing to attack.

Teyla followed his movements, noting the dark shadows beneath his eyes, the grim set of his jaw beneath the easy banter, and the stiffness in his movements. He had pushed himself hard already, she guessed, and this bout was just the last in a long string. Did Ronon not see what she saw? Or was he caught up in the movement of the moment, in the pleasure of sparring, and the pace of the fight?

The end came soon enough.

John feinted and Ronon attacked, pushing through the intended follow-up attack, and unbalancing John with a hard shove so he tumbled back to sprawl on the floor in ungainly abandon. His head dropped back on the wooden boards with a thump so he looked like one dead. Yet the noise was not so loud, and the movement seemed more deliberate than anything else.

Certainly when Ronon offered him an assist in rising, he reached up to take the hand and climbed to his feet with what appeared to be good humour.

“Had enough punishment?”

“I think I’ve reached my quota for the day.”

Ronon clapped him on the shoulder and grinned.

Torren, having decided the fight was over and it was safe to get down, had since squirmed out of Teyla’s grip and she let him scramble down the tiers and over to the two men, to demand the attention that her son felt was his right as a Very Important Person In Atlantis.

After a moment, during which Ronon swung Torren up to the sound of a bright squeal of delight, Teyla rose and came down the steps towards John, who’d turned towards her, his hands resting on his hips, a faint shadow of dampness spearing down the front of his black tee-shirt.

“Back already?”

“It was only to pick up Torren,” she said. “They are too busy right now for trading concerns. You have been going long?”

“Long enough. All’s well at New Athos?”

“Preparations for the spring planting are going well. And Halling invited us to share in the mid-season celebrations.”

“Bonfires and _ruus_ wine?”

“That would be it.” Teyla smiled at him, watched his smile kindle in return. “Satisfied with your defeat?”

John rolled his head from side to side, stretching his neck. “I held him off,” he said with a mock-sulky glance over his shoulder towards the other man.

“Could have taken you anytime,” Ronon retorted with Torren happily riding on his shoulders, small hands gripping the thick dreadlocks.

“You just keep thinking that.”

“Look, mama! I ride!” Torren bounced up and down on Ronon’s shoulders, and Teyla bit back a smile at Ronon’s wince. He _had_ put her son up there of his own accord.

They trailed out of the gym in good spirits - at least, Ronon and John and Torren seemed happy enough, and Teyla joined in the teasing and commentary with a good will. Still, beneath her appearance of good humour she was troubled more than she would allow.

For a moment there, John had looked like he was lying there in relief - the tension gone from him, a man quite at rest with himself and his place in the universe.

He had looked utterly relaxed, which a person might at the end of a fight, having done everything and still been defeated. Yet at the moment he had put his head down on the floor with a thump, Teyla had seen a man relieved, not at the conclusion of a hard fight, but at being beaten.

And that was not John Sheppard at all.

 

-oOo-

 

He had Wraith on the mind.

John woke up tied down, unable to breathe, with a freezing pain in his chest as the Wraith sucked the life out...

Brightness disoriented him, and he tore out of the bed, his shirt sticky and cold against his back and belly. He fumbled with it, clawing at the sheet which had snaked around his ankles and wrists in the night, and got it half-off before he twisted too far, overbalanced and fell to the floor.

Lying on his rug in the morning light, his hands still caught in the damp fabric of his ancient Travelling Wilburys t-shirt, John took a deep breath and then another.

He’d been back on the hiveship again, down before the Wraith.

Only this time, he’d been in his right mind as he bent and pressed his forehead to the boot in front of him - abject submission to the Wraith. And when that boot nudged him backwards onto the floor, he’d lain back without a protest or fight - like some kind of victim, asking for it - _wanting_ it.

Shame burned him, and John took a deep breath, blocking the memory. He rolled to his knees and grimaced as they ached a little. The shirt came off, was balled up and tossed in the general direction of the clothes hamper. It fell way short of its goal.

The shower was hot and mindless, the pound of water cathartic against his bruises. Yeah, he was going it too hard against Ronon, and he’d known it before Teyla said anything.

It just felt so good - that moment of peace right at the end, when he was down and he didn’t have to fight it any longer. John didn’t get that feeling much.

Especially not with the turn his dreams were taking.

It wasn’t the first time he’d dreamed of his captivity or the first time he’d dreamed himself subservient before them. But they were becoming more frequent.

John swiped down the mirror so he could shave and carefully ignored the hollows under his eyes as he eased the razor over his stubble.

Recently, Teyla had suggested that he should have a conversation with Dr. Robinson. John had vetoed that, flat out. There was no way he’d go talk to Doc Robinson about this. If this ever got on his record - hell, if the city ever found out about it...yeah, he’d be screwed beyond words.

The commander of Atlantis, who had a thing for getting down on his knees before the Wraith. Yeah, no; hell, no; fuck, no; and are you fucking kidding me? NO.

Plus, troops weren’t usually too sanguine about commanders who needed to see shrinks. It didn’t engender trust.

It wasn’t the residual enzyme addiction. Keller had tested him nine ways to Sunday and he was clean. It only happened when he was asleep, and as the situation with the village under the Wraith’s control had proved, he knew exactly who he was and what he stood for. He wasn’t a Wraith-worshipper anymore, any more than Ronon was.

But proving a negative was impossible, and he didn’t even want to try.

As he rinsed off the razor, John grimaced at his reflection.

His dreams were just his subconscious throwing shit up at him - it wasn’t like he could control that, could he? And he’d had dreams before where he was being punished for something or another with varying people in the role of disciplinarian: Elizabeth had been an initial feature, soon replaced by Teyla which became more or less recurring, Ronon every now and then, and once Colonel Sumner - which had been beyond screwed up, but then John wasn’t on the list of people with a baggage-free psyche.

So this was just him and his fucked up psyche.

He towelled off, found some clean clothes, got changed and headed out.

It wasn’t a mission day - although that could change very fast. Teyla and Torren were already at breakfast, with Torren apparently deciding that the windows of the mess hall needed decoration in the form of smeared blue oatmeal.

John offered to keep an eye on the toddler while Teyla cleaned up and got some of her own breakfast into her.

“Thank you,” she said, between mouthfuls of blue oatmeal. “He will not sit still this morning.”

“Play!” Torren announced, using John as his personal climbing gym and trying to scale John’s shoulders.

“Play comes later, little buddy,” John said, detaching a chubby hand from his ear and bringing the kid down. “Right now, you wanna sit tight in your seat while your mom has breakfast.”

“Playtime!”

“Sergeant Reynolds has offered to look after him this afternoon.” Teyla sipped her tea and heaved a great sigh. “But this morning, it is Dora the Explorer and the playbox.”

“Playbox! Mama, want playbox!”

“When I have finished breakfast, Torren.”

Torren began to bounce up and down on John’s lap. “Now, Mama! Now!” John winced and moved the kid further along towards his knees.

Teyla put down her teacup and folded her hands in her lap, her expression going stern and blank. “Torren.”

It wasn’t very harsh or very loud, but Torren blinked, stuck his hand in his mouth and sat down in John’s lap. “Sowwy, Mama.”

“It is not my lap that you were jumping on, Torren.” Teyla spoke quietly, but it was a tone of voice that warned against disobeying - at least not without some serious consequences. “You were hurting John, and you should apologise.”

Torren twisted around and looked up at John. “Sowwy, John.”

He couldn’t help ruffling the kid’s hair. “Not a problem, little buddy. But you gotta behave until your mom’s finished her breakfast.”

“Come and play?”

“Later,” John said, with a wry smile for Teyla, who’d started on her oatmeal again and was eating with brisk movements.

 _Thank you,_ she mouthed when Torren found John’s dogtags and decided that they made an awesome noise. John just smiled and shrugged. Torren had a charm all his own, and it wasn’t any hardship to entertain him - or sit opposite Teyla and watch her hurry to eat her breakfast so she could take her son back.

He managed to manoeuvre a hand around Torren to get a sip of his coffee, and found Teyla watching him. The urge to squirm in his seat rose and was squashed, but when he raised his eyebrows at her in silent question, he received nothing more than a faint smile and a shake of the head.

“So,” he said, feeling weirdly uncomfortable under her gaze, “What’s your plans for today? After lunch, when Sergeant Reynolds has him?”

“I was thinking a nap sounds good,” Teyla said, scraping her bowl with deft movements. “But I have not had time to stretch properly in the last week, so I thought I might take a little time to do that.”

“Got any time to beat me up?” The words were out before John managed to censor them, and he felt his nape heat.

Delicate brows rose, and her mouth tilted a little at the side. “I believe I could make some time.”

“Say, 1500 hours?”

“1500 hours would be fine,” Teyla said, draining her teacup. “I shall meet you in the gym.” She held out her hands for Torren, and with only a little protest, the kid let go of John’s dogtags and snuggled down in his mom’s arms for a cuddle.

They made a pretty picture and John hastily took up his cup of coffee to hide his smile as Teyla kissed Torren’s cheek, and Torren gave her a smacking kiss back.

“ _Colonel Sheppard to the control room!_ ”

John gulped down the rest of his lukewarm coffee with a grimace. “And of course it has to happen right now...” He stood, grabbing a Pegasus apple off his plate. “If you’ll excuse me...”

“I apologise, John,” Teyla began, but he shook his head.

“Not your fault. I’ll get something later. See you after lunch, okay?”

The apple gave him something in his stomach, although it wasn’t going to be enough to take him through the day. Then climbed the last few stairs, saw who was on the screen in the control room and was glad he’d only had the apple.

“Todd.”

“Sheppard.” On the screen, the Wraith inclined its head towards John. “I am glad to see you.”

“I’d say ‘likewise’ but I think we both know it wouldn’t be true. What do you want?” He glanced at Woolsey to see if he had any idea what this call was about. A faint shrug indicated not.

“I have a request of Teyla Emmagan, if she will hear it.”

“And you asked for me?”

Something glittered in Todd’s eyes - a gleam of humour. “She is the Queen. It is the way things are done.”

 _She is the Queen._ John stifled the shiver that ran down his back at Todd’s words. Okay, so this was some point of Wraith courtesy. Which, in and of itself, was more than a little freaky and something John wasn’t going to think about. “I’m guessing that you want to meet up.”

“On a world of your choosing. I promise to bring only myself, my ship, and my proposal.”

John thought fast.

“We’ll be coming in armed,” he warned.

“I would expect nothing less,” came the urbane reply. “However, there is a certain delicate urgency to this request. I require a meeting and an answer to my question within the few hours.”

And there went the day. John glanced at Woolsey and received a frown. The man probably wanted to talk it over, which was fair. However, in John’s opinion it would be better to find out what Todd wanted first and then hash it over.

“All right. We’ll meet.” John turned to Chuck. “Give him the co-ordinates for Balenga. We’ll be there in two hours,” he told Todd. “Can you make it?”

There was a pause as the Wraith parsed the co-ordinates. “Yes. I will be there. I look forward to our next meeting,” Todd said with what probably passed for a Wraith smile before he vanished from the screen.

John blew out a long breath and met Woolsey’s gaze. “Guess we’re gearing up for a trip out?”

“Since you’ve already made the appointment, I guess so.” Woolsey sounded peeved. “I would have appreciated a moment of consultation before you made the decision to meet with Todd.”

“Yeah, sorry. I figured the less time we gave him to prepare an ambush, the better our chances. Chuck, let my team know we’re going out, please?”

Beetling brows rose behind the thick frames of Woolsey’s glasses as Chuck began contacting the other members of John’s team. “You think this is a double cross?”

They’d never proved that the information passed to the Wraith who’d captured John had been from one of Todd’s crew. On the other hand, the information passed to Atlantis about John’s whereabouts as prisoner of the Wraith had come directly from Todd to Teyla, and from Teyla to Atlantis.

“No,” he said, thinking of Todd’s declaration _._ “But this minimises the risk in case it is.”

 

-oOo-

 

It wasn’t a double cross - at least not one that John could spot. Todd was perfectly polite - in a typically Wraith fashion - and what he turned out to need was Teyla to masquerade as the Queen of his alliance again. Without the peanut gallery - as Rodney said on the way back to the city.

They met. The proposal was discussed. Teyla agreed to do it. John insisted on escorting Teyla out to the meeting point.

Torren had to be taken back to New Athos a day early, and John got the duty. Teyla had to go in for the surgery to take on the appearance of a Wraith Queen, and that took most of the afternoon.

By the time it came for them to escort Teyla out, it was well into the Atlantis evening.

“This is a bad idea,” Ronon said as he joined John on the way to the ‘jumper bay.

“I’m not too fond of it myself,” John said. “But Teyla thinks there’s a reason to keep this alliance together.”

“Maybe Todd has a compulsion on her.”

John thought of Todd standing outside his craft, his hands free of his sides, watching them walk across the sand towards him. He thought of the way the Wraith’s eyes had rested on Teyla as he addressed the group. “I don’t think he can.”

 _She is the Queen._

“I don’t like it.”

“You wanna try to persuade her out of it?” He preceded Ronon into the transporter up to the tower and headed for the ‘jumper bay. They were escorting Teyla to the other planet, after which she’d board Todd’s ship and travel the rest of the way with the Wraith.

“Already tried. I thought maybe you would.”

John snorted. “If I thought she’d change her mind, I’d try.”

He didn’t think she would, though. Teyla had been the one to take the lead in the discussion with Todd - unusually so. She’d glanced at John, but he’d let her direct the conversation since she was the trader and the one who’d be in there, facing the alliance. And he’d gotten the feeling that there was another conversation going on that he and Rodney and Ronon weren’t able to hear - one directly from Teyla to Todd.

And yeah, that was more than a little weird, but in the end, it all came down to whether he trusted Teyla or not.

When they reached the ‘jumper bay, Rodney and Teyla were already waiting outside the ‘jumper.

Or, rather, Rodney and a Wraith Queen were waiting.

Knowing that Teyla would be dressed ready for her meeting with the Wraith had prepared them for the sight of her, but it was still a shock.

Dressed in black boots and skirts that swung down to her calves, with her skin a marbled green and her hair dyed black, Teyla looked at once both quite familiar and totally alien. And maybe it was just that they were in Atlantis and a Wraith Queen in the city looked so very wrong, but she managed to fill the ‘jumper bay with her presence.

Ronon hissed something beneath his breath and took his hands off his weapons. Teyla’s mouth curved, lips parting to show the Wraith dentures that had been affixed to her own teeth. It might have been a smile. Or it might not. “I shall take that as a compliment.”

John let out the breath he’d been holding. His chest was tight, and his mouth was dry as he asked, “All ready to go?”

“I have my supplies and Rodney’s beacon should it become necessary to signal Atlantis. So I believe I am ready.” Then Teyla gave Rodney a sideways glance that was almost impish, “And I call shotgun.”

And she turned on her booted toes and strode up the ‘jumper ramp, unmistakeably a Wraith Queen in her mannerisms, even if she remained very much Teyla underneath.

“That is just so _wrong_.” Rodney scowled as he stumped after her, although John had no idea if he was referring to Teyla calling shotgun or her outfit. Or both.

John took a deep breath, not entirely sure why he felt like there wasn’t quite enough oxygen in the ‘jumper bay and walked up the ramp, Ronon just behind him.  John seated himself in the pilot’s chair and began the pre-flight check, initialising all the ‘jumper systems while his team settled in around him. 

“Control, this is Colonel Sheppard. We’re all geared up and ready to go.”

He lifted the ‘jumper off its pad and moved it to the middle of the bay, where the doors to the Gateroom were sliding back. A few seconds more until there was clearance and they’d be all ready to go.

“You’re clear to launch, Colonel,” said the gate technician. “Good luck, Teyla.”

John glanced sideways at Teyla and found her looking back at him with a gaze that was thoughtful...probably?

“You’re sure about this?”

“I am sure,” she said, leaning over to press the dialling keys on the ‘jumper DHD with precise care for the long nails she now sported - lacquered in this deep green that matched her skin. She looked up and met his gaze. “It will be well, John.”

John nodded, swallowing to moisten his too-dry throat. Then he focused on the descent into the Gateroom and the wormhole ahead, and took them through.

That night, after Teyla was seen off and the report given to Woolsey, he dreamed of kneeling before a Wraith Queen.

She was small and slim and graceful, and the Wraith males fell back as she strode into his prison. But the face above the collar was Teyla’s Wraith visage - proud and fierce, with the sensor pits running deep along her cheeks. Her booted feet circled him, and her skirts whispered against his stubble as she passed in a cloudy scent of soft musk and bittersweet resin.

The shove was light but unexpected. Taken off-guard, John fell back and to the side, sprawling on the floor with his legs tangled up beneath him.

She knelt beside him, over him, and her mouth curved as her feeding hand slid down his body with a cold, biting touch...

John woke rock hard and panting.

 

-oOo-

 

The _Indomitable_ plunged through hyperspace like a fish in a stream. Sleek and gracefully made, capable of carrying up to twenty blades and clevermen, at present it carried only two minds within its bioelectrical hull.

One of those minds sat in the chamber she’d been given, meditating in the peace and silence of the ship.

Teyla had survived the meeting, but there was a relief in no longer being surrounded by Wraith. She could keep the Wraith from her thoughts without effort now that she knew the skill, and her status as Todd’s Queen - along with her own proven skills - gave her admiration and respect. Yet there was part of it that was always a disguise, and always would be.

She could maintain it, but it was not wholly comfortable.

In her head, the humming quiet of the ship’s awareness was a peaceful and pleasant noise - a soothing buzz into which Teyla allowed her thoughts to drift, like a leaf swirling down the autumn rivers. And after observing and interacting with the males at the Wraith gathering, she had much on which to let her thoughts drift.

There was a tap at her doorway and a thought like the clearing of a throat, and she opened her eyes and bid Todd enter.

He moved easily enough, showing both innate grace and innate age in his movements. From Teyla’s gleanings she had gathered he had been a powerful and feared warrior in his youth, and if his body was no longer so young as the blades who had strutted around her, primping for her admiration, his mind was still sharp and his plots cunning.

*We shall arrive at the planet before the next day begins. You may make your way home from there.* At her gesture, he took the wallseat she indicated. *You will be glad to be among your own kind again.*

*Doubtless as were you after you and John escaped Kolya.*

She let him glimpse the planet they had left him that first time, let him taste her bewilderment and pique at such a bargain as John had struck with him. A life for a life, and yet John’s honour would hold it nothing less than true.

*Many would not have done even that much.* And clear in his mind sat Ronon’s image, teeth bared, gun ready.

*He has suffered much at the hands of your kind.*

*And liked this charade less than did Sheppard.*

Teyla didn’t say that Ronon was no more allowed to dictate her actions than John was; she need give no explanation to one who understood a Queen’s actions running contrary to his own advice. Instead she embarked on a matter that had touched her curiosity during the last few days.

*Is it usual for the blades to behave as they did at the convocation?*

Laughter rippled. *Before a young, strong Queen such behaviour would be not only usual but expected. They present themselves for your pleasure, in hope of gaining your favour.* He studied her, half-mocking, half-curious. *Were there any such who interested you, then?*

*If there had been one such, it would have ended only in disappointment.*

*True. We yearn to submit to a Queen,* Todd murmured. *By force or by seduction - the degrees vary each to each. But to be held in the mind of a strong Queen, to give over your will to hers... There is pleasure in it. You do not agree?*

“It is...less common among humankind.” Teyla spoke out loud, unwilling to parry the delicate tendrils of inquiry that were part and parcel of the Wraith speech in mental communication. “Less accepted.”

“And yet you feel such a desire to dominate, or else the mantle of Queen would not sit so easily upon you.” Todd tilted his head as though curious, and she felt the wondering speculation in his thoughts.

Her eyes narrowed as she gripped his mind in her own, the vise-grip reminding him that, of the two of them, she was the stronger.

It had not always been so, but the woman who had known only of her Gift as forewarning of a Culling was gone these many years past. Who remained was a woman who had been taught and trained to use her Gift as a weapon, who could pass in all things mental as a Queen of the Wraith, and who was the superior of any Wraith male.

*So I am chided,* Todd murmured. He had tensed for a moment before he relaxed in her mental grip. *And so you see how it is.*

There was no shame or humiliation in his thoughts. Acknowledgement of her strength, shaded with a touch of humour - the wry amusement softening the thoughts of an old, scarred warrior.

 _We yearn to submit to a Queen._

Teyla thought of John, sprawled on the sparring room floor, for that one moment utterly at peace.

 

-oOo-

 

She miscalculated the time of her return and was surprised to step into a darkened Gateroom.

The click of weapons being primed brought her hands out in careful surrender.

It seemed that they had been expecting her as a human, possibly not realising what it meant that she had gone to negotiate with the Wraith dressed as one of them.

“I am Teyla Emmagan,” she said clearly into the silence, and felt the moment of skepticism before someone lumbered up the stairs. “Are you deaf, marines? At ease!”

Florid and heavyset, Sergeant Ridgerton - more commonly known as ‘Garfield’ from some cartoon reference - had been with the expedition for many years now, and was familiar in both face and attitude. Teyla smiled as he crossed over to her. “Sorry, ma’am. We weren’t expecting you - not in that getup, either. Surprised us a bit.”

“I got my hours mixed and thought it was day,” she said by way of explanation. “I apologise for causing alarm.”

“Not as sorry as I am to have all these weapons pointed at you. Friendly fire, eh?” He held out his hand as though for a Lantean handshake, and Teyla blinked, then smiled and gripped his hand in hers - what would be the feeding hand in a Wraith, and which was merely surgery and cosmetics on her. Someone made a noise like a gasp, but Garfield ignored it. “Look, you’ll probably want to get back to your rooms...”

“I should prefer to go straight to the infirmary,” Teyla admitted.

Although Jennifer would not be awake to start the reversal process, it would be easier to go there and not have to walk the halls in the morning light. If a handful of marines had reacted to her arrival so sharply, then her appearance in Atlantis would be cause for far greater alarm and shock.

“No, that’s probably better. I’ll log your arrival in with control and the infirmary, and drop a message for Woolsey. He’ll get it first thing in the morning. Want me to drop one for the Colonel?”

“No, I can do that myself.”

“Right as you have it, ma’am. And if you don’t mind, Hernandez here’ll escort you down just so we don’t have anyone getting panicky or trigger happy because of your costume, eh?”

“That would be greatly appreciated.”

Hernandez was one of the newer marines - only out since they had returned to Pegasus. And so he gave her sideways looks all the way to the transporter, then took a moment to realise that the length of her nails made touching the map difficult. He didn’t quite flinch back from brushing against her as he reached out to touch the map, but Teyla caught the moment’s hesitation.

He had the courtesy to apologise at least. “Sorry, ma’am. Guess I’m just not used to...”

“What appears to be a Wraith walking the city?” Teyla smiled. “I should hope we never have to grow used to it.”

“Amen to that, ma’am.”

They got off at the infirmary level, and walked through corridors that were empty of people - a relief to Teyla since she was tired and a little bit annoyed with herself for getting the time wrong. She had hoped to be greeted by her team-mates and welcomed home after her absence - a small but significant thing.

“They’re probably expecting us,” Hernandez said as they approached the infirmary, “but probably best you let me go in first.”

About to wave him forward, Teyla paused and held up a hand. “Wait.”

Hernandez stilled and in the silence, the clatter of a metal tray falling to the ground came noisily from within the infirmary, along with the sounds of struggle.

The marine took the lead, and Teyla let him go.

In the outer rooms everything seemed in place, but further in...

The recovery ward was chaos.

An aide tried to move scattered equipment out of the way of the nurses trying to wrestle John down as he fought them, tooth and nail. Sweat slicked his skin, making it difficult for the nurses to hold him long enough for a hovering aide to give him a sedative shot. His sweatpants and t-shirt showed visibly damp, and from the look of it he’d been sleeping in the empty bed at the end of the row until he’d awoken.

Only Teyla was not sure he’d woken at all.

His eyes, though open, were wild and blind, and he fought like a man who did not recognise his surroundings or his actions - only that he was being restrained against his will.

“Let him go!” Her voice rang out in the confined space, and she must have spoken with authority, for the aides and nurses dropped back, obeying the tone before they saw who had given it.

“Whoa, what the--?”

John charged her.

Teyla left the explanations to Corporal Hernandez, and met John coming. She gasped with the full momentum of his run as he slammed into her. Her hands came out to grab his upper arms and she turned a little, swinging them both around. Now he was the one moving backwards and she had momentum on her side.

The jolt of hitting the wall shook through them both, but Teyla ignored the brief shock and quickly grabbed his right arm as he brought it up, pushing it hard back against his left, trapping both hands. Their height differences made it more difficult to find sufficient leverage as he strained against her, but Teyla leaned in to add to her advantage and she held him.

Their eyes met, cat-slit gold to dilated hazel.

His pupils shrank, focused on her.

“Teyla?”

His voice was hoarse, as though from screaming, but Teyla felt relief like the cool of the river in the summer heat. John knew her for who she was. And she finally understood what John needed. “Yes, John. It is I.”

John ceased his struggle immediately, his whole body relaxing under her grip as he sucked in great gulps of air. He didn’t try to break away and he didn’t protest her hold as his lids drooped down to shadow his eyes. Teyla fought the sudden desire to keep pushing him against the wall and finally eased her grip on him. She did not let him go, but she was no longer holding him so hard.

“Do you know where you are?”

“In the infirmary.” He blow out a long breath, and his head drooped down until their foreheads touched, his eyes closed as he muttered, “Jesus.”

Teyla let him rest for long moments, safe under her hands, his back against the wall.

 

-oOo-

 

John had been carefully not-avoiding Teyla ever since she’d been let out of the infirmary.

She’d given the mission report from her bed there, incongruous in her Wraith makeup as she relaxed on the pale sheets and answered questions. From the sound of it everything had gone off without a hitch, and although the issue of helping Todd maintain his alliance was up for debate, John figured it was in the distant future since the alliance was more or less stable according to Teyla.

Whether John was stable was considered less certain.

He closed the section doors behind him as he walked, locking them. They would open at an override command or when someone with the gene ordered them open, but it was symbolic. No open doors behind him, the wall at his back, and...

And an uncertain future in front of him.

He couldn’t put this off. Not any longer. Not with the dreams he was having, not with the waking nightmares he’d had the last few nights.

Woolsey and Dr. Robinson would only let him stretch his leash so far. And John was just about at his limits.

He knew what he needed.

He knew what he wanted.

He just didn’t know if Teyla was prepared to give it to him.

And he didn’t know if he was prepared to give himself like that, either.

But he had to find out. Which was why he was on his way to the gym and Teyla after spending the last week trying not to meet her eye. Too much longer and he’d lose his opportunity and his courage. And then there’d be...nothing but the long fall back down and the hard ground below.

The lights in the gym were off, but the midafternoon sunlight sliding in through the stained glass windows bathed the room in a warm glow. Teyla was doing the splits on the floor, her skin gleaming bronze as she stretched her left leg straight out in front of her, her face almost flat against her knee as she bent down so the dimples in the small of her back made faint shadowy hollows.

She looked sideways as the door opened, up over her knee. “John?”

“I’ve always wanted to ask: does that hurt?”

Her  mouth quirked and her eyes skimmed him and his duffle bag, seeing the bantos rods poking out the end. She turned to face her knee again. “Ronon is not available?”

“Uh, no. He’s learning the control room systems.” At her raised eyebrow, he shrugged. “I think it’s the tech in the control room - the one he spars with?”

“Ah,” said Teyla, lifting her body upright and stretching her arms above her head. “Amelia Banks. She spars with him sometimes - her kick-boxing thing, although she is learning to use _bantos_.”

“Yeah. Her. Anyway, I though that maybe you’d be willing to give me a challenge.”

The silence stretched for a moment - long enough for John to wonder if she was going to say ‘No’. Then Teyla nodded. “Once I have stretched out.”

He let the pull of his muscles occupy him for a few minutes, while Teyla finished her floor stretches and began limbering up. John didn’t stare. But he could see her movements in the corner of his eye as he put his body through its paces. He watched the way the light clung to her skin as she rolled herself up and went to fetch her rods, swinging them through the air in preparation for the fight.

Time to face the music.

“How’s the scars?” He asked, the leather grip solid under his fingers as they took positions and began to circle. “After the surgery, I mean.”

“Healing.” She tilted her chin so he could see the faint reddish marks where the surgical incision from the cosmetic implants were fading. She tapped the tip of one of his sticks. “How are yours?”

He blinked. That was more confrontational than he’d expected from Teyla. But when he glanced up, there was a hard glitter in her eyes, like she was sizing him up.

“Healing.”

Wide lips tilted, and she attacked high and hard, more aggressive than usual. John nearly didn’t see it coming and only just got himself into position.

“You are careless.”

“Just letting you think you have the upper hand.”

Brows rose as she disengaged, delicate arches beneath the gleaming line of her brow. “I do not already have the upper hand?”

The next attack was harder, but John was ready for it. He let himself be driven back, trying to change the angles of his retreat, trying to find a way under her guard. Back one step, then another. He blocked a high blow and just managed to evade a low swipe, then pushed in, attacking in close quarters and trying to push her back.

His muscles ached with the strain of pushing, but it was a good ache. And inside him, something wanted to back off, to let her do all the work. But he couldn’t. That wasn’t fair.

A little voice whispered that it wasn’t fair to make Teyla do this - to put her in this position. She had her people and a reputation and an ex-partner and a son. And she’d never-- There’d always been an arm’s length between them, even when-- And she’d picked Kanaan to--

John defended and deflected, his thoughts fragmenting under her assault. Her ponytail snapped like a whip, and her eyes were narrow and calculating. She whacked him on the back of his shoulder and he grunted and turned that side away from her to give it a break, then winced as she rapped him across the knuckles.

“See, now you’re just playing with me.”

She drew back, a smile teasing her mouth. “Are you not enjoying it, John?”

Without any warning, she attacked, then sidestepped and smacked him sharp across his butt . John hissed. It wasn’t a full smack, just a glancing blow - a sting.

Sweat was beading on his brow now, trickling down behind his ear, behind his nape. The room was too hot, not enough air for what burned in him as he circled, then lunged. He’d planned to take her low, but she saw or guessed his moves. Another sidestep gave him another nip of the bantos rod. John winced.

Teyla smiled. And the smile squeezed deep in John’s belly.

“You are very transparent.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” That smile again, although this time there was a tinge of something wistful in it before that vanished. “You enjoy the defeat.”

“Hey, I fight to win.”

“Yes. But when you lose, there is pleasure in it.” She attacked - direct attacks, pushing him back, acting as a distraction so he was forced to think and react at once. “There is surrender.”

His throat was dry. John swallowed and reached for a familiar carelessness. “Is there?”

Her eyes narrowed and her expression grew tight. This time when she shoved him back, he stumbled - and then nearly fell over as she tossed the bantos to the side and came straight for him.

Later, he’d think that he should have defended himself. Later, he’d think that he shouldn’t have let his guard down.

Later, he’d only remember that her hands fisted in his shirt, that her eyes were a pivot as they swung around, that the bare floor against his shoulderblades was cold, and that the pressure of her hand on his throat felt so damn good...

“Is this what you want, John?” Her knees were splayed either side of his body,  her weight over them locking his arms in. He might be able to move her off him if he took her bottom in his hands and rolled...

If he cupped her buttocks in his hands and moved her over his hips.

John swallowed, his mouth dry, his thoughts clouded. “I...”

“Because if so, then you must ask for it.” Her voice softened. “I do not know what the Wraith did to you in captivity, John, but I see what you ask for in the way that does not ask at all.”

He swallowed, and the pressure of her hand against his Adam’s apple relented a little as she began to draw back.

John half-lifted his head, pushing his throat against her hand, then stopped when her brows rose.

“It’s not...” He took a deep breath. “I dream of the Wraith.”

“As do I.”

“Yeah, but I dream of...” John swallowed. He had to say it to someone - and at least with Teyla there was a chance she might understand. “I dream of kneeling before the Wraith. For a while now.”

“And you have knelt before the Wraith. As a prisoner, forced, coerced, without the will to resist.” She looked away, and the diffuse light of the afternoon gleamed off a drop of sweat running down her throat. John watched it fall and licked his lips as the droplet slid down into the cleft of her breasts. “Todd said something to me on the way home: _We yearn to submit to a Queen._ And while I was among them, I saw...” Her eyes kindled. “It doesn’t matter. What was done to you by the Queens was not willing submission but force.”

John’s chest felt tight and there was a buzzing in his ears.

Submitting to someone in authority, someone who coerced him, who demanded his obedience... Or submitting to someone he trusted, who would let him up if he pushed back, who he was willing to obey..

As a prisoner to the Wraith, addicted to the enzyme, he’d been willing.

He didn’t have the enzyme anymore.

But he had Teyla.

Her eyes rested on him, careful and cool, judging his responses - but not sitting in judgement on his choices.

“Ask me to give you what you want, John.”

“And you will?”

“Yes.”

John took a deep breath and made himself relax. She knew him - what he thought of as the worst of himself, what he’d done, what he’d been. And he trusted her.

“I want to submit,” he said, his voice hoarse and sore in his throat. “To you. I want you to make me...do things.”

“What things?”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“If I did not, I would not be willing to satisfy your need, John.” Teyla leaned forward, planting one hand by his head and leaning down so her face was very close to his. Her lashes drooped low over her eyes and her voice lowered, husky and compelling. “Tell me what you want, John.”

“I want to be fucked, Teyla,” he said and felt the breath from his words slide off her cheek. Heat rolled across his skin like a drowning wave. “I want you to take me like it’s your right.”

Her lips brushed the corner of his mouth as she bent just a little lower over him, and John’s breath caught in his throat, wanting to suck on the swell of her lip, sweet anticipation. He nearly swayed in, but stopped himself as she asked, “And is it my right to have you, John?”

“Yeah,” he managed. “Oh, yeah.”

Teyla lips closed over his, hard and demanding - no waiting to initiate. John tilted his head back and opened his mouth to her and she slid in with a soft laugh. She was cool cream and tangy lemon to his tongue, the pleasure of flight, and the warm glow of home, and John nearly moaned at the delicious ache in his balls as she reached back and fondled him through his sweatpants.

Then gaped as she broke off the kiss and climbed to her feet.

She stepped back, seeming tall and dark against the bright glow about the windows, and pointed to the floor in front of her. “Here.”

John got to his knees and crossed the room to her. His hands trembled as he slid them into the slits of her skirt and up the warmth of her leg. His breath caught as his nose traced her inside thigh and his tongue snaked out to taste the salty, fragrant skin. And something like a smile hovered on his lips as he took that first soft nip of tender flesh and her hand clenched in his hair hard enough to hitch in his throat.

Painful but good.

 _Oh yeah._

Relief at the feet of a Queen - his Queen.

John was exactly where he needed to be.


End file.
